


(let the past die)

by Alice_not_in_Wonderland



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Ben Solo Needs A Hug, Gen, Kylo Ren Angst, Kylo Ren Backstory, Kylo Ren Has Issues, Lonely Kylo Ren, Not Canon Compliant, Young Ben Solo, give this child some love, he needs friends too, he's emo and problematic and i love him, like it's a small detail but still, lonely ben solo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-27
Updated: 2017-12-27
Packaged: 2019-02-22 16:34:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13170849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alice_not_in_Wonderland/pseuds/Alice_not_in_Wonderland
Summary: The one in which the boy never quite grew up, and never quite grew out of the light.





	(let the past die)

_Ben is three years old._

He loves his mommy, his daddy, and his uncle Luke, Chewie, and Lando; he has dark, inky hair and brown eyes; he's the son of Leia Organa and Han Solo and he's happy. He's another little boy that wants to be a Jedi when he grows up, only for him, his dream is plausible, because if he focuses enough he can make his toys float in the air. They call it the Force, and he doesn't realize it, but he feels things differently from the people around him. His uncle says that he is connected to the Force in a way that most aren't, and Ben doesn't understand what he means but laughs and nods his head anyways.

Ben loves the color red, loves his daddy's stories, loves his mommy's hugs. Ben sneaks up on his Uncle Chewie to tackle him for free rides up high on his shoulders; Ben wears his daddy's jacket that is far, far too big on his tiny frame. Ben has tousled hair from his father ruffling it, and Ben will only eat onions if his daddy makes a rumbling sound like when the Millum Falcon shoots off into the sky when his daddy feeds him.

He has an imaginary friend.

His friend talks to him, sometimes, and will tell him stories of people that he's never quite heard of. He speaks with a soft, measured, voice, straight into Ben's mind, and though Ben doesn't understand everything that he says, he is Ben's bestest friend in the whole entire galaxy. When his mommy is too busy with work, and when daddy is off in space where he says he will take Ben someday, his friend talks to Ben. Sometimes, it is his friend that has to tell him bedtime stories at night, it is his soft, crooning voice that lulls Ben to sleep. Sometimes, his friend is the only person to talk to as he waits, and waits, and waits for his mommy to come back and play with him. Sometimes, he only has his friend.

His friend has a name.

He calls himself Snoke.

_Ben is eight years old._

And he is alone. Ben is wearing his "Jedi clothing", some simple brown robes that drag on the ground, and he's trying to meditate as he sits on the floor of his house. His mom is at a senate meeting (again), and his dad and Uncle Chewie are off on some trip, _(again)_. Ben tries not to feel too resentful that his dad wasn't there for his last birthday, that his mom spends more time on the Senate, on the Republic, than she does on him. He tries not to feel angry, he tries not to feel anything, because that leads to hate and Uncle Luke has told him over and over and over and over again that hate is the path to the dark side. And Ben, Ben knows that he doesn't want to be a dark sider, knows he wants to be a Jedi like his uncle.

But Ben hates being alone.

Ben fists the fabric that pools around him, feeling it between his fingers as he scrunches his face up and closes his eyes, trying to meditate as his uncle told him. But try as he might, he can't reach that state of inner peace, can't stop his mind from wandering, can't stop feeling and thinking and so he gives up, slumping down into the oversized cloak and moving the hood to cover his ears. The kids around him make fun of them, say that they're too big and that they make him look stupid. His eyes are large and brown, like his mom's, and the thought makes his mouth bitter because she isn't here to help him, per usual. Nobody's here to help him.

Nobody except Snoke.

He doesn't talk as much as he did when Ben was younger, but he's still there, like a heavy weight that presses into the depths of Ben's mind. Ben doesn't talk to him either, as much, because just the feeling of reaching out to him, letting him speak into Ben's mind, it feels like a violation of his deepest thoughts and feelings. Snoke stopped being imaginary a long time ago, and Ben knows that Snoke is somebody far away, but just as real as his uncle, but Ben doesn't want to think about all the possible implications and just lets it be.

_"Young Ben, do you still wish to be a Jedi?"_

He does, desperately; he dreams of wielding a lightsaber blue as the sky, blue as his uncle's eyes. He wants to be a Jedi and bring light to the galaxy, he wants to help his mom and dad and he wants to be just like his uncle. He wants to be a hero, he wants to master the ways of the Force, he wants to be everything that he's dreamed of being since when he was a little boy. But Ben, Ben feels too much, has too much passion. Ben gets too angry, Ben is too destructive, and try as he might, Ben can't calm down. He can't get rid of the anger, the rage that thrums just below his skin, he can't stop feeling, he can't distance himself. He can't be a Jedi.

_And, his mind whispers,_ if he can't be a Jedi, _then where does that leave him?_

Ben is 13 years old. He is lying down with his arm over his face, his eyes red and irritated from the angry tears that had been flowing through them all afternoon. His bed is in the center or the wreckage that once made up his room, clothes and parchment strewn about in messy piles. He clenches his teeth, and with another push with the Force, he sends a plastic figurine clattering against the wall of the room. Ben pushes his head under his pillow, blocking out the sound of his parents downstairs, but still knowing that they're talking about him. He can feel the worry with the Force that is radiating off his mom, and that only serves to make him angrier because kriffing _hell what was wrong with him._

He was always the odd one out, the one that stood off to the side, the one that was a little too awkward, a little too lanky, a little too different. Most of the kids stayed away from him, whispered legends about his mom, about his dad, about _Han and Leia and Luke_ and he wished, just for a moment, that his family was normal. Most of them tried to ignore him, not wanting to get swept up in the chaos that was sure to follow a _Skywalker_. Besides, Ben was too awkward, too socially inept, too _weird_ , so it's not like he had a trail of people following him even before they knew who he was. He pretends that he's not affected, that he doesn't mind being alone (again), but each kid that he sees walk by without acknowledging him, each happy group of children that he isn't a part of, sends pangs of hurt through his chest that he tries to hide. The voice in his head _(he has long since forgotten which is Snoke and which is his own thoughts)_ whispers that they don't care, that nobody would like him, that he is a disappointment to his family name.

The voices inside his head aren't the only ones that tell him that. The children that aren’t afraid of him, afraid of his legacy; they mock him to his face. He hears them, as he walks by, hears their mutters about the oddball freak son of Leia and Han reaching him day after day after day. They make fun of his ears that are too big, his lanky, but skinny frame, they pick apart every part of Ben Solo until he can't take it and he runs off to hide in the corner. In his head Uncle Luke says _calm down Ben calm down_ over and over and over again; it is his mantra; and he tries to ignore the other voices that urge him to lash out, to show them exactly what it means to be the child of legends. The Force swirls around him, fueled by his emotions, and all of the energy has nowhere to go and just builds up, day after day after day until finally, Ben has enough.

He is sure that he just pushed the kid, to get him off of him, to get him out of his face. It is only when he hears the sound of a body hitting a wall, a strangled yelp of surprise and then pain, that his head snaps up and he realizes, startled, that the kid is fifteen feet away from him and slumped against the wall. For a moment, all is silent, even in Ben's mind, and he can hear his heart hammering away in his chest and he wants somebody to do _something_ because he's falling apart from the apprehension and like the Force has answered him, everything starts to happen, too fast, and Ben is in the center of a cyclone and he wishes for the silence once more. There is distressed screaming, all around him, he can see people backing away from him in fear and the adults, the teachers are running in horror at the kid _(Ben doesn't know his name)_ who has sat up, clutching at himself in pain but even so Ben can see the fury in his eyes, can hear him screaming over all the chaos.

"MONSTER!"

And Ben is falling apart, even as it all happens, and he can hear it over and over and over again as it plays within his head like a broken record, glitching in and out _(monster monster monster monster)_ and Ben wants it all to stop, but he can't so all Ben can do is fall. People are yelling at him, are talking to him, but he just curls in on himself a little more and pretends that nothing is happening beyond him, beyond the endless abyss of his mind and for the first time in years he can hear, clearly, what is Snoke's voice as he praises Ben, tells him that the kid had it coming, that it was deserved and Ben didn't do anything wrong, and the compliments are hollow and stir at some part of him that had been deeply buried for his entire life, a part of him that now feeds at the years of despair and isolation that have played on his mind since he was old enough to walk, to remember, and all of the emotions are too much for Ben and so he lets go.

Everything past that is a blur, and he can barely hear his parents voices when they talk to him, disappointed, because everything outside sounds like it's a million lightyears away over a malfunctioning comlink _(his dad's voice is through one, ironically, because Han isn't here for his son, is somewhere across the galaxy on a ship that he loves and understands more than Ben Solo)_ , and all he can do is drown in the raging strength of his own feelings as Snoke's sweet words wash over him like the crashing of waves. He is sent to his room, and Ben doesn't know what he's doing, doesn't know why he's here, doesn't know what happened and he just wants the feelings inside of him to stop tearing at him, to stop working with such an intensity and so Ben lashes out, tearing apart everything that he can find, knocking down clothing and accessories and his calligraphy set, pushing everything inside of him outwards with the Force and cursing it all. He doesn't realize that he's crying or that he's screaming until later, when the storm dies down and he falls, drained, onto his bed, pretending that he can't feel his mom's worry and concern over the Force, pretending that people are there for him when he needs them, pretending that Ben Solo is just an ordinary kid with ordinary issues and that today never happened.

_(That was the first time that he was called a monster, and for some reason, that name manages to stick with him when Ben Solo could not.)_

_Ben is 17 years old._

He was told, all his life, about his family's history. He remembers curling into Dad, watching with dazzled eyes as his father described epic escapes in the midst of falling debris, of taking down the evils of the empire together with mom and Uncle Luke. Mom would tell him gentle stories of his grandfather, Anakin Skywalker, before he was tragically cut down by Darth Vader along with the other Jedi. He was a child born of the purest light, born of legends, and perhaps that's what made all the more difficult, because Ben Solo was unable to be good. He was angry, passionate, always a little too much for his parents, for the kids at school, for everyone. He struggled with controlling his emotions as the Jedi do, he struggled with the destiny that he is sure he has to follow, but Ben never doubted that he was a child of the light, that his parents wanted only the best for him.

_(That's what they want you to think, his mind whispers, Snoke's voice says, and Ben only curls more into himself because they love him, they love him, they have to, they **promised** ) _

He doesn't mean to hear the truth. He was walking, practicing his newfound ability of cloaking his Force signature to the best of his ability. The Force seems to be all that he has, sometimes, especially with how long it has been since he's even talked to his parents. They had decided to have him train with his uncle, shortly after his outburst when he was younger, and he tries to swallow down the bitterness that stirs within him when he thinks about it. He knows that they only did it to protect him, to help him become a Jedi like he always wanted, but even so it feels as if they are abandoning him because they don't understand how to take care of him, weren't ready for him. But Ben doesn't want to think about it, doesn’t want to linger on the thoughts that plague his mind with darkness, so he throws himself into his training. He rises quickly to the top of the class, and the others just look at him angrily from the corner of their eyes because _of_ course _he's the best he's the son of Han Solo and Leia Organa_.

These same children are the ones that find out the truth, the ones that shatter what is left of Ben's childish views of the world. To this day, he has no idea how they heard it, only remembers the hushed voices rise in intensity, remembers the tension rising, only remembers dreading going anywhere because there is sure to be his robes destroyed or balls of mud "accidentally" hurled at him with every turn. He doesn't even remember what brings it all on, but he thinks that he was angry, perhaps at the kid that would not stop snickering at him behind his back, would not stop flicking pebbles at his body, and he thinks that he turns around angrily to yell at them to stop and the kid is angry as well, and his voice is laced with sarcasm and fury that makes Ben go rigid.

"You're just like your grandfather, Darth Vader!"

All goes silent, and Ben realizes that he hates silence, he hates the reminder of how alone he is, and the kids around him are guarded, watching for the reaction from their favorite source of entertainment. The silence, the darkness suffocates him, the landscape too serene as Ben tries to process what the kid has said, _(the truth, his mind points out)_ and his emotions swirl around inside him, conflicted. He doesn't realize that the Force is responding to his feelings, but the people around him do, and they are pulling away from him, away from the raging energy that is saturating the air. Ben hardly registers the look of the child across from him, as it morphs from total self-satisfaction to something more unsure, more wary, because everything that Ben knows and Ben feels is falling apart in front of his eyes. The cracks in the stories that he knows, that he has perceived as truth widen, Snoke latching onto each one and murmuring words of care and comfort into his mind. Ben feels the ground cracking, and the people around him scatter as the many rocks and gravel begins to swirl around the air near him. Ben is the eye of a raging storm, and the particles swirl and scream through the air until they are hurled every-which-way, crashing into trees and ground as Ben is once again, alone.

Ben has no mother, no father next to him to talk to, to confront, so Ben has no choice but to go to his uncle. Shadows claw across his face in contrast to his pale skin, and Luke looks up at him, startled by the rage that colors his face. Ben's conflicted brown eyes meet Luke's pale blue ones, and his nails dig crescent shaped indents into his palm as he storms inside, slamming the door with an easy push with the Force. He is screaming, and he's not sure how much of it is coherent over the sound of his own beating heart, but Luke seems to get the gist and reaches out towards him with the Force. Ben hates it, hates Luke's pitying gaze, hates the happy stories that he was told as a kid, hates everything but hates himself the most. He hates himself for believing their sugarcoated lies, even when he has had to deal with them over and over and over again. _(I'll play with you later Ben, I'll talk with you later Ben, I'll have time for you later always later always later)_. He hates himself for thinking that his parents, his parents that were never there wouldn't be able to disappoint him, again.

Luke tries to placate him with calming words on how they always just wanted the best for him, that he was supposed to find out later when his family was together, but Ben is filled with doubt because they lied to him, they had been making all of it up, and if they lied about something as big as this then what else could they be lying about? Snoke, he realizes that it is Snoke that capitalizes on his doubt, but Ben is tired of it all and lets him speak honeyed words of acceptance that taste bitter in Ben's mouth. And Ben knows that hate is still the way to the dark side that he should be calm, find inner peace, but Ben no longer can be satisfied by the cryptic nothings that Luke repeats over and over and over again.

_(Ben hates liars, even now, and he never lies_ to _the scavenger, even when it'd be_ easier, _because he's struggling but he can see that she is too.)_

_He is 23 years old._

He remembered, as a child, watching his uncle Luke go through his forms with a lightsaber, looking on in awe at the light of the green blade as it shone brightly even in the midday sun. He realizes, for a moment, that the effect is so much stronger in the night, the blade shining like a beacon that burns into his eyelids and makes them snap open. He sees his uncle, sees his stance, sees the way that his eyes are trained on him and feels the apprehension that rolls off of him in waves and Ben understands. Luke looks crazed in the light, and Ben can only watch as the green blade goes up into the air, prepared to slash at him and Ben can do nothing but react, so he is reaching towards his blue saber, meeting his uncle's blade in the night air and Ben is afraid, knowing that he is no match compared to his uncle, the famed Jedi master, and so he reaches out, and the wall behind Luke is collapsing and it is just Ben now, his lightsaber bright and blue, and fear explodes through Ben's mind because _what just happened what am I doing is he dead is Luke dead what did I do._

Snoke had been telling him for years that his parents had abandoned him, that he had nobody, and in his state of muddled fear Ben realizes that he was right. His uncle-no, Luke Skywalker, had been ready to kill him, to slash him out of existence using his lightsaber, and his parents - Ben realizes, somehow, in the racing of his panicked mind, that they- what if they knew too? He thinks about Han, about Leia, about playing with models of the Falcon with his father watching fondly from behind, about his mother carding through his hair when he was sick or crying to soothe him while singing old lullabies from Alderaan, he thinks about their looks of shock and fear when he was thirteen, he thinks about how long it has been since he has seen either of them, talked to either of them, and Ben is confused and backing away from the rubble and he realizes that maybe, maybe he only had Snoke after all.

_(Ben truly did die that night, not at the hands of a Knight of Ren, but killed by the uncle that he trusted and loved.)_

Kylo Ren wasn't merciless, as most believe. But he was afraid. Kylo ran across the academy, convinced that everybody was prepared to kill him, to murder him _(just like his uncle)_ and he knows that they can't hurt them if they're dead. He tries to be efficient, to distance himself from his emotions, but he knows that the feeling of the person across from him dying, the sickening way that the blade slid into the person's body, the tremors that he felt through the Force and how they shook him to his very core. But even so, Kylo didn't want to die, didn't want to be struck down as Luke attempted, so Kylo kept going, kept slashing, until everything was a raging inferno that spit sparks like stars into the night.

_Kylo Ren is 29 years old._

He pretends that he is fully affiliated with the Dark Side. He pretends that he has no allegiance but to the Supreme Leader, but to the First Order. He pretends that he doesn't count to ten in Shyriiwook to calm himself down, he pretends that he doesn't sketch the Millennium Falcon with the little parchment still left in the galaxy. He pretends that when they interfere with a connection that was used by General Organa, that he didn't sleep better than he had in years listening to the sound of her voice over and over and over again. He pretends that Ben Solo is dead.

_(Let the past die. Kill it, if you have to.)_

His name is Kylo Ren. He has a saber that shines bright-red and spits sparks, he wears dark robes and a mask to hide the face of a boy that still had a family. He has killed thousands, and yet each time he still flinches back at the way that the Force responds to his actions. He has become trained in the ways of the Force, but Kylo Ren is still weak. The Supreme Leader says that he will be strong, that he will kill off the light when he kills his father, but when the blade goes through his heart and his father's hand is on his cheek, Kylo Ren realizes that the light has not died. It rages inside of him, angry and screaming, and the pain that hits him is welcome because it is what he deserves, what he needs. He hears his father's words, ones that was convinced were lies just moments before, but he realizes that maybe, maybe Han Solo and General Organa still loved him. Maybe - maybe they didn't hate him, and the thought sends pain coursing through him and Ben Solo curses it all, because in the end, all he wanted was to stop being alone.

 

 


End file.
